This man, in none of his incarnations, seems appropriate for Marilyn. Marilyn tells us:

I've had some relationships, none of them were easy. As I say this, the yellow curtains I purchased are swinging out from the window. The movement is lulling. I went to individual therapy, group therapy, both on Saturday afternoons. The room grows lighter then darker as the curtains move out and back. I actually had a fiancé once, moved in with a man named Jeffrey.

Jeffrey hated yellow, hated cats, did not want children. Jeffrey was not interested in therapy. He believed all of the problems in the relationship were my problems. Love can be blinding.

Perhaps too many changes at once descended upon him: key exchange, live-in girlfriend, cat. My cat. We got air cleaners to help with his allergies. We bought ceiling fans to reduce the heating and cooling bills. Together, we invested in new dishes, new silverware, pictures for the wall. Carpet was next, and new furniture.

One night -- before we bought the carpet, before we ordered the furniture, before we got in more deeply into things jointly purchased, jointly owned -- he stayed out until three AM. The cat kept me company, though I didn't see it much as it hid in its brown carpet-covered cat home. I went to bed around midnight. The cat didn't come out. Jeffrey didn't call. I heard the cat's bell from the other room. Jeffrey didn't say anything about his plans. He just didn't come home.

And it was around 3 AM or maybe a little later that I heard voiced from downstairs, the sound of the television, some music playing. I came downstairs in my robe to find Jeffrey with his friend Steven and a young girl who couldn't have been much older than twenty. They were naked.

"We were watching television," Steven volunteered.